//------------------------------// // Turf Wars: Running the Rooftops // Story: Spiderman Equestria's Hero: Season 3 // by Adamverse //------------------------------// A week after the Mysterious Heist. It was late at night, Fluttershy and Adam was fast asleep in their bed; Fluttershy had her head resting on her fiancé’s chest, while he had had his arms wrapped around her. Like a lion protecting its cubs; all was quiet. Adam started waking up, his eyes fluttered open to the sound of Fluttershy’s light snoring; he smiled and looked down at her, he stroked her hair. The light caressing of her hair made her wake up. She looked up at him and smiled, “Hi.” “Hi, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Adam replied. Fluttershy slid herself up the bed so they were both at eye level, “It’s alright, any excuse to look into your eyes.” She said. Adam reached up and caressed her face, “I can’t believe I get to marry you.” He brought her closer and kissed her cheek, she giggled. “There is no one else I’d ever want to spend the rest of my life with; and don’t think I haven’t noticed how long you’ve wanted to ask me.” She then began kissing Adam, he kissed her back. The hero was starting to enjoy himself, when reality kicked in. “I better make the coffee.” He said as he moved her off him and sat up. Fluttershy caught him off guard and wrapped her arms around his neck; pulling him back down onto the bed. “No, stay a while.” She begged. Adam tried to get back up, but his beloved wouldn’t let him; so he rolled around so he was facing her. He said to her, “You are beautiful, more beautiful than anything treasure lost in the multiverse.” Although Fluttershy was concerned about being compared to objects of value, she knew he meant well. “I tell ya, if I didn’t ask you to marry then; I’d get down on my knees and do it all over again.” “This time, without being interrupted by an inter-dimensional demon.” Fluttershy replied. The engaged couple kissed again before Fluttershy let Adam stand up; she followed him into the kitchen, there they made breakfast for each other. Seeing as how they both knew what each other liked, it wasn’t hard; Fluttershy then asks. “Is it not early for us to be eating?” She quickly looks at the clock. “It’s only three thirty.” Adam smiled at her, he understood her concern. He replied, “Its fine, most people don’t sleep that often anyway; unless you don’t want these oats and strawberries.” Those words then caught Fluttershy’s ears. “Hey give ’em.” She said as she grabbed a berry from the bowl. Take this nice scene and enjoy it while it’s here, it all goes away when Adam’s phone starts vibrating. The hero picked up his phone, a crime alert; someone was attempting to break into the museum of art. When Fluttershy saw the alert on his phone, she remembered something; “Isn’t that the same museum where you fought Babs Seed, or ‘Scream’ as she likes to be called?” Her words were true, either way, he needed to get there; but he didn’t want to leave Fluttershy. He turned to his fiancé and sighed. “What are you waiting for, go.” She states. Adam pauses and says, “But, I don’t want our marriage to just be me going off and you sitting here and worrying.” He took her hands. “That’s not how I want to spend my life with you.” Fluttershy caressed his face, “That’s not how it’s going to be; I’m not going to sit here and worry. Because I know you’re never going to be beaten.” The two of them kissed one last time. “Now go get ’em tiger.” Adam smiled, he went back into the bedroom to change; when he came out, his red and blue suit was shinier then ever; Spidey joked, “Wow, I like that new washing machine powder.” Spiderman stroked Fluttershy’s face before he opened the window and leaped out into the streets; firing a web-line, he swung towards the art museum, and the people who were robbing it. While the wall crawling hero swung through the city, he thought he might need some back up; he back flipped in the air and his phone felt out of his suit, he dialled the number and waited for a reply. But all he got was, “Hey, this is Soarin; I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.” Adam concluded, “He must be out with Rainbow Dash; or in with Rainbow…” a bad thought then came to mind. “Blah, I shouldn’t think about it. I guess I’m on my own.” As the night went on, Spiderman arrived at the museum; and there he saw the reason had to leave his fiancé at home. A group of men stepped out of a van parked right outside the building; two were carrying crowbars and one was carrying a lock picking kit. Spiderman needed to take these guys down one at a time; taking them all at once would increase the chance of some of them getting away. Spidey started by shooting a small impact web at the ground, he stayed out of sight but kept his eye on the crooks; the web did catch the attention of the criminals. The one that seemed like the boss took two of his guys and went to investigate. He knelt down and picked up the web piece; “Spiderman’s here, spread out and find him.” The boss ordered. Adam’s plan had worked, they were spread out now; this meant he could start taking them out. Spiderman started by swinging over to a lamppost, he shot a web down to the crook standing under him and pulled him up; before he could shout out to his crew, Adam knocked him out and webbed him up. The next guy heard the webbing and went over to investigate; however, no one was watching this guy, so Adam could take him out. Spidey quickly web-zipped to him and knocked him out by slamming him to the ground; no one heard what happened. That just left three guys left in the area, two patrolling the grounds and the one trying to pick the lock. While the two patrolling weren’t looking, Adam fired and impact web at the man by the door; the web stuck him to the wall. However, it didn’t knock him out; he called for his crew, they came to his aid and saw Spiderman. “Get him!” one of the crooks cried. They came charging towards him, Spidey back flipped and kicked one of them in the face; he was thrown back and landed on a bench, the bang on his head from the bench wood knocked him out. The final guy threw his crowbar at the hero, it hit Adam and made him stumble back. The criminal saw he had hurt the wall crawler, so he went in for a bigger attack; Adam was punched to the ground, the crook seemed strong. Spidey needed away out of this, so he thought quickly and an idea came to him. “I hope this works on more than just rhinos and were-wolfs.” Spiderman stated. He shot a web-line at a lamppost and pulled it down with his strength; the crook looked up and saw the lamp coming down, before he could move, the lamp fell on him and he was trapped. Spiderman got up and walked off his injury; what he didn’t expect after taking down the criminals was the alarm to still go off inside the museum. Adam crawled up the side of the building and tried to find a way in. He found his way in, someone had already made it for him; a hole had been cut through the window, this was how the one who caused the alarms to go off got in. Spiderman used the same entry and went inside the building; this needed to be looked into. Spiderman was hanging from a spider-web as he lowered himself down to the floor of the museum, he turned as he was lowered, and he got a look at all the art work that was in the room. However, there was one piece that caught his eye; it was a painting, placed behind a wall of glass. Once he reached the floor, Adam kept looking at the painting; he whistled and said, “That must be worth a hand full.” “It is.” Those words came from someone above the hero; Spidey looked up and saw the one who had broken in here. Talon, she was sitting on stone column in the corner. “Does ‘I’m going to go straight’ mean anything to you, Octavia?” Adam stated. Talon leaped down from the column and landed next to Spidey, the hero said, “So you’re the one who broke in here.” He then thought for a minute, “But you can’t afford to hire men, which means you’re working for someone again, or someone else is after this painting.” “Yeah, like them.” Talon pointed towards the main entrance; which had now been broken down, a group of thugs had smashed their way into the museum. Adam turned to Octavia, “I don’t suppose I could get some help?” “Sorry, I’ve got my own work to be doing.” She replied. Talon made her way to the wall of glass, Spiderman turned his attention back to criminals; they completely ignored Talon and just started attacking Adam. Spiderman fought back against the crooks, while the cat burglar was doing the job she came here to do. With the laser cutter in her eye mask, Octavia cut a hole in the glass; she pulled the glass circle out of the wall and place it to the side. She then stepped inside the chamber and when to grab the painting that was mounted on the wall. By the time she’d grabbed the picture of the wall, Spiderman had finished with the crooks that tried to jump him; he walked over to the Talon to stop her from getting away with the painting. “Okay, Octavia; play time’s over, give me the picture.” Adam ordered extending him arm to her. However, the reaction he got from her wasn’t what he expected; “Okay, I’m not even here for this.” Without a warning, she broke the painting in half over her knee; that piece of valuable art was now worth nothing. “What are you doing?!” Spidey gasped. The broke frame then revealed something, Talon pulled a small flash-drive out of the picture frame; she showed it to Spiderman, “The painting was worth nothing compared to the data on this drive.” She then looked down at the broken picture, “Well it is now, anyway.” Talon suddenly shot a grappling hook up to the ceiling, before she left with the drive, she turned back to Adam; “Nice seeing you again Spider.” With that said, she left. It took Adam a minute to realise something, but it came to him in the end; he snapped out of it and shouted, “Hey, come back here. What’s on that drive?!” Spiderman jumped up a web-zipped towards the hole; but by the time he got outside, it was too late, Octavia was gone. Spiderman stomped his foot on the roof of the museum and muttered, “I hate when that happens.” The next day, Adam and Fluttershy went to the HQ; there, they met with Twilight and Soarin. “Morning.” Twilight Sparkle greeted. “How are the newly engaged?” the question made Fluttershy blush a little, Adam just pulled her into a quick hug. Anyway, the got right down to business; “Twilight, what can you tell me about that drive that Talon stole last night?” The genius girl sat at her computer and began doing some research, she then explained what she had found; “Well, I can’t tell you anything about the drive that was hidden in it, but the painting was on loan from a rich tycoon that lives in Canterlot City. His name’s Red Feather, but his tycoon name is, The Owl.” Soarin states, “That gives us nothing to work with.” Suddenly, Fluttershy says something unexpected, “Maybe the drive contained his personal information, something he didn’t want to release to the public; and the painting was the perfect place to hide it. Talon probably stole the drive, and who ever she works for, they want to blackmail this man for something.” The rest of the group turned to her with a surprised look on their faces. Fluttershy said, “What, we’ve been doing this for three years now; I’ve figured out how some of these work.” Adam then stated, “As far as I’m aware, the only way to find out what was on that drive is to find Talon.” The spider-hero then turned to Soarin, “Suit up; we need to sweep the city.” Meanwhile, across the city, Talon was still doing her job. She used suction cup devices to crawl up the wall of an old warehouse; this place had been unused by the public in years, it used to be a lock up for food that needed to stay frozen. The people had no idea that one of Canterlot’s crime bosses had turned it into his hideout. Talon reached the top of the building, now she needed a way to get inside; she noticed an air vent that would take her down into the building’s vent system. “Spidey sure will be grumpy when he hears about this.” She said as she pulled the vent panel off. She turned the torch on her eye mask on and crawled into the vents. As Octavia crawled through the building, she could hear people talking the rooms below her; at one point, she stumbled across the man himself. Iceberg, he was sitting at his desk in the middle of a meat freezer, surrounded by his men; who were all wearing winter clothes. “Calm down, Owl; what do you mean your drive is gone?” the crime-lord was talking to the other lord, Owl; who now, has been made aware that his flash-drive has been stolen. “Well listen to me you feathery-freak, we’ve made deals and it’s been recorded on that drive; if that info gets out, I got away to.” Talon ignored the conversation Iceberg was having, she continued crawling until she reached the next room; she looked down through a vent, in the middle of the room was an ice sculpture of a swan. “Bingo.” Talon whispered. Frozen in the long neck of the sculpture was another flash-drive, it looked exactly like the one Talon stole from the museum; one would assume it holds similar data as well. So Octavia quietly pushed the vent to the floor, she jumped to ground and summersaulted towards the swan; she whispered, “Shame, I like swans.” She used her laser to cut through the ice. Talon picked up the swan’s decapitated head and moved it to the side; she then simply plucked the drive from the ice. Now that Talon got what she came for, she grapple back into the vent and made her escape. Just as she left, Iceberg wandered into the room; he wanted to make sure his drive was still okay. However, when he enter the room; one of his men called out, “Boss, the drive, it’s gone.” The crime-lord ran to his sculpture, the drive was gone. He turned to his men and said, “Sound the alarm! And call Silvermane; his drive has to be next.” The whole warehouse was on high alert, all while Talon was making a clean get away with the drive; all she said while she ran was, “Two down, and one to go.” Spiderman and Nova had been searching the city right up until the sun went down; they regrouped on the roof of a building in the city. Spidey crouched on a ledge while Nova hovered in front of him. Soarin started the conversation with, “Any sign of her?” “No.” Adam replied. “This one can be slippery; but she’s out there, somewhere.” Neither of them said another thing as Nova floated over to the ledge and sat down next to Spiderman. That’s when he remembered something he needed to tell Adam, “Adam, how well can you keep this city safe.” “Fine, I guess. Why?” Soarin continued, “It’s just, I don’t know how to tell you this, but; I’m leaving Canterlot, tomorrow.” “What?” Spidey asked. “You’re leaving, for how long.” “I got into my dream college, the Wonderbolt Air-Force. I’ve talked it over with Rainbow, we’re going to keep in contact; I’ll come home for holidays, and you’re wedding of course.” Adam thought about it for a sec, he remembered what it was like when he had to fight on his own; he did alright, but it did help to have someone have his back. The wall-crawler then said, “If it’s the thing you’ve always wanted to do, you owe it to yourself to go.” “Thanks, man.” Nova then started hovering in the air again; before he flew away, he turned to his partner and said, “Good luck, man.” He then flew away towards his apartment; Spiderman waved to him as he left. However, the hero’s attention then turned to something else; an alarm had gone off in the distance, this needed looking into. Spiderman got up and ran across the roof top, right up until he jumped off and began web-swinging towards the source of the alarm. Spidey then landed on what looked like a decorated roof, a private part of the building for the person who lives in the penthouse; the roof was covered in fancy plants and garden statues, “Wow, this guy must be pretty rich; I wonder if…” Before Adam could finish, the door that lead to the roof swung open; Talon came running out the door, holding a small statue in her hand. She tackled into Spiderman and they both rolled across the roof together; they stopped when Octavia put her foot down, she was now standing over Spidey, holding up the statue. “Hey, what is that?” Talon looked down at him and replied, “Nothing.” Without saying anything else, she snapped the statue’s head off. After he got back up, Spiderman asked, “What is with you and destroying art, all of a sudden?” Suddenly, the two of them could hear people coming up to the roof; Talon got the third flash-drive off out of the statue and made a run for it, “Sorry, Spider; gotta go.” She then jumped off the building, down to the street. “Hey, come back here.” Spidey ordered. He jumped after her and shot a web at her ankle; unfortunately, Octavia turned and threw a small grenade at Adam. It didn’t explode, but it did electrocute him; Talon landed on the ground, and Spidey landed in a dumpster. Talon started running away, the electricity had short circuited Adam’s web-shooters; he muttered to himself, “The shooters need to recalibrate; guess I’m doing this the old fashion way.” Spiderman then ran after her. The chase took the two of them through the local market, they had to jump over cars and food stands; Adam could only run after her. “You don’t have to do this, Octavia!” Spidey shouted. She shouted back, “Still think you can tell me what to do, let me live my own life, Spider.” The two of them left the market and began running towards a subway entrance; Talon ran down to the trains, Spiderman had no choice but to follow her. Octavia jumped through security and ran straight to the trains, Adam just managed to keep up her; when she saw Spiderman catching up, she had to lose him, fast. Talon saw a train coming, so she took the leap and grabbed hold of it; she crawled to the top of the train and watched Spiderman who was still on the platform. Finally, Adam’s web-shooters had recalibrated, “Finally.” He muttered. Spiderman then started swing after the train, he was able to keep up, but only just. While they kept the chase going, they kept talking and shouting things at each other. “Please, Talon; stop! You can walk away.” Spidey explained. “Just tell me what’s on those drives.” Octavia chuckled and replied, “Come and get them, Spider.” Spiderman managed to land on the train, just as it was coming out of the tunnel and onto railroad track; Talon saw the chance to get away, but Spidey wasn’t going to let her. Talon jumped off the train and onto a roof, Spiderman jumped with her; they both tumbled to a stop, where Adam managed to shoot a web at her hand, sticking her in place. He got up and walked over to her, “Now can we talk like human beings.” It was at that point that Octavia had given up running, “Okay, Spider; you win.” “What’s on those drives?” She groaned and replied, “The drives, always the drives.” She moaned. “Fine, if you must know; each drive contains the criminal data base and info on each crime-lord they belonged to. Hand these over to the police, and those three go away forever.” “How many drives do you have?” “Three.” She replied. “One from Owl, one from Iceberg; and now, one from Silvermane.” Talon then remembered something that Spidey might want to know. “Also, Filthy Rich has a drive; it’ll tell you all of his locations. Give that to the police and they’ll know where to find him.” “Help me get it, and we can put Rich and the other crime-lords away for good.” Spiderman explained. “You can be better than just a thief.” Talon thought about it for a minute, until she came to a decision; she replied, “Okay.” Octavia used the laser on her mask to cut the web off her hand. “Follow me, Spider.” She ran across the rooftops to the location; Spiderman chased after her, again. Spiderman and the Talon landed on the roof of a building next to the boat yard; Talon went first, to scope the place out. After a few minutes, she gave Spidey the signal to come in; but what he found, wasn’t what he expected. There was a safe, built into the wall; it was open. Adam opened the safe to see what was inside, he couldn’t believe what he saw. “Sable weapons? How did they get here?” Suddenly, without warning, the safe door closed; Adam shouted, “Hey!” when the door ceiled, Spidey heard a voice from outside. “Sorry, Spider; but this was just too much money to pass up.” Talon explained. “Do you know how much Filthy Rich is paying for the info on these drives?” Spiderman couldn’t believe it, she’d tricked him; he shouted, “You lied to me, for what? Money?” “It’s not personal, Spider.” She explained as she leaned her head against the safe door. “I know you’ll never forgive me, but know I’ll always love you.” With that said, she left. Adam couldn’t see anything, but he could hear her footsteps as she ran away. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but Spiderman needed to stop Talon before she gives that information to Filthy Rich; with no other options, Spidey began punching the door. Punch after punch, but the door wouldn’t move, and his knuckles were starting to get sore. Then, the hero had an idea; Adam punched through the lock and shot webs into the gears, with all his strength, he pulled the gears out. When that happened, the lock had broken and the opened. Spiderman made it outside, he checked the scanner on his mask, “What Talon didn’t know was, during our chase, I managed to throw a spider-tracer onto her.” Adam followed the tracker, it led him straight to her. Spidey was swing as fast as he could, Talon’s hideout was just a few blocks away; but while he was swinging, he tried to contact her. He had a number saved on his contacts from when she would call him, so he used it, quickly. “Come on, Octavia pick up.” After three tries, she actually picked up. “Hey Spider, you escape my trap?” Adam had to get her to listen to reason, “Listen, Octavia; all ‘Rich wants is the info on those drives. Once he gets them off you, you’ll just be a loose end; he won’t keep you around.” “I appreciate the warning, Spider; but I can handle myself.” She hung up on him. Adam kept swinging and said, “Darn it, Octavia. I gotta get there, fast.” Finally, Adam landed on a building’s roof, he looked across to the other building; he could see Talon in the apartment, she was sitting at a computer. Spidey figured she was transferring the info to Filthy Rich; so he jumped off the roof and web-zipped to her window. Suddenly… An explosion; Spiderman was thrown back onto the other roof from the blast. When he looked back at the apartment, Talon’s place was up in flames; Adam shouted, “No!” No way could anyone have survived that blast; Spiderman punched the ground, he’d failed. What Adam didn’t know, was on another rooftop, Filthy Rich and Man-Wolf were watching the fire. ‘Rich looked down at his phone, the data from the drives had been sent to him; in his other had was a detonator, the one that blew up the apartment. The crime-lord turned to his were-wolf friend and said, “I hate loose ends.” Man-Wolf chuckled at his statement. With nothing else to say, the two villains left; now they could begin the next stage of their plan. Later that night, Adam was lying in bed; Fluttershy snuggling up to him, trying to make him feel better. “You couldn’t have done anything to help her, honey.” She said. Adam replied, “I could have, I could have been faster and saved her. She’s gone because of me.” He sighed and stroked his hand through Fluttershy’s hair. “She was in love with me.” Suddenly, Fluttershy sat up and looked down at Adam, “What?” “Relax, I said ‘she was in love with me’; but I didn’t love her.” Adam sat up and stroked her face. “You are the only one I love, that’s why I’m marrying you.” With that said, they both smiled and kissed each other good night; Adam rest his head on the pillow and Fluttershy rested her head on his shoulder, they both fell asleep in each other’s arms. Meanwhile, on Filthy Rich’s yacht; the crime-lord had entered a video call with the other crime-lords of the city. He was ready to bargain for his turf back; and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Greetings, my fellow rulers of crime in our city; I don’t I need to tell you why we’re all here.” ‘Rich explained. Owl was the first to speak out, “You think you can just steal our data, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms; you’ve got a nerve, Filthy Rich.” “Once we find out where you are, our men are going to hunt you down and take you out, you vile snake.” Iceberg stated. Silvermane stayed quiet while the others kept talking; when the two of them had stopped, Filthy Rich explained his motives. “I promise you, gentlemen; all I want is my turf back.” He held up three new flash-drives, each one with each of their crime data. “And I want it, now.”